


Making an Entrance

by Kieron_ODuibhir



Series: Cirque de Triomphe [5]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, DCU
Genre: (is still crazy), Declarations of War, Dramatic entrances, Earth-3, Gen, Good Joker, Hero Debut, objects in mirror are closer than they appear, puns, stetsons are cool
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-25
Updated: 2015-01-25
Packaged: 2018-03-09 01:31:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3231197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kieron_ODuibhir/pseuds/Kieron_ODuibhir
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's all shattering concrete and screaming steel and huzzah for seatbelts, and then he's broken through and lets the truck grind to a halt, and cuts the engine. There was a meeting scheduled here and now, his information said. He thinks it counts as thoroughly crashed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Making an Entrance

The growl of a huge diesel engine is a very-slightly unusual bass note in the melody of the city's background noise, and some of the more alert heads turned on his way here, even after he mastered all the interesting extra controls and stopped jerking to a halt and running up curbs.

Not that very many people were around, in the hour before dawn, and down here just before the warehouse district starts he doesn't see anyone…which is actually kind of a waste, come to think of it, J reflects as he backs carefully up a one-way street, which barely fits. He had to stick to the big main avenues most of the way here because this is honestly the biggest truck he's ever seen and it probably couldn't take half the corners in the business district, never mind driving the thing into Oldtown.

It's huge, it's purple, it belongs to Wayne Industries, and he had plans the minute he laid eyes on it. Someone's going to notice it's missing in an hour or so, but that'll be much too late to matter. He can't help grinning—all the time now, really, but this time with real feeling.

"Alrighty then. Let the good times roll." J pulls down the brim of his Stetson, throws the engine into drive, and then into a higher gear as he speeds up, and then one higher until, at forty mph, he plows into the side of Owlman's main criminal headquarters.

It's all shattering concrete and screaming steel and huzzah for seatbelts, and then he's broken through and lets the truck grind to a halt, and cuts the engine. Tries the door, and when it sticks he unbuckles, turns sideways, and kicks it wide open. There was a meeting scheduled here and now, his information said. He thinks it counts as thoroughly crashed.

"Who the devil—?" Owlman demands outside, in the low fierce growl that means he's going to start breaking his own minions soon, if he doesn't get either answers he likes or a viable enemy posthaste. Sometimes the best thing to do when he's like this is sit back and listen, though it's hard not to wince.

Now, though, J swings himself out of the cab and up onto the crumpled hood of the truck, where he's surrounded by steam from the dying transmission, compensating for the slight heel on today's boots with a sway and a wave, and a flourishing tap to the brim of his hat. "Yoo-hoo! And also _howdy!_ "

He's lived for the limelight as long as he can remember. (Not very long, admittedly, but how does that matter?) Right here, right now, he _wants_ to be stared at, he demands it—this is a performance, and what they're seeing is a crazy man dressed up as a cowboy clown, all leather and denim, big hat and tall boots and a wide, fixed grin. (The stares of everyone at home burn now, like a weaker kind of acid, ever since he came out of Doc Thompkins' back room and got the bandages off. He _refuses_ to be ashamed. He is not beaten. He will not live as Owlman's message.) They don't even know it's not makeup.

"Whoever you are," the Owl begins, all menace, and is obviously completely unprepared to be interrupted.

"What, doncha recognize me, pardner?" J breaks in. "After you gave me such a _lovely_ makeover? I'm _hurt!_ Wounded, even." He splays one hand across his chest and stretches his grin a little wider, the puckering scars in his cheeks aching at the stretch, but it's a good ache, a physical-therapy kind of ache. If he doesn't stretch those muscles, the Doc said, they'll heal stiff, and he'll lose facial expressiveness.

Screw that. He's lost enough.

The megalomaniac in the mask narrows his concentration on those scars, for a moment, like a needle, and then presses his lips together.

"Red Hood."

It's not the first time the Owl has said his name incredulously, like he's anticipated the punchline of a terrible joke and can't quite accept the stupidity that joke represents, but it definitely takes top place for sheer disbelief.

"Aw, you _do_ remember!" J capers a little, which is risky on the uncertain surface of buckled steel, and claps his hands together.

"This joker's the Hood?" he hears one of the Owl's men mutter, one Benny Cooper, actually; his mom runs the grocery store on Fourth and Hall. Red Hood broke his collarbone most of a year ago and Mrs. Cooper was very angry about it until she heard he'd caught her boy extorting some other business owners on his boss' behalf. He appreciates the vote of respect for his old identity, though it's not like he ever leashed his sense of humor when he had the red hood up, so he doesn't really see how there's a disconnect. He chuckles a little, and it comes out sharper than he expects, and goes on longer. He doesn't let it break the scene, and stretches his mocking, aching grin at the man who tried to kill him.

Who _failed_ to kill him, and is going to learn to regret it.

"So you survived," says the Owl. Unruffled. "I assume your dramatic entrance was meant as some sort of message."

"Yup!" He sings it out gaily, as though he hasn't a care in the world, and he knows the Owl-minions around him, Benny included, are too bewildered to move against him without orders. Have maybe even accepted this as a very public demonstration of a private piece of business, which as far as he's concerned it is. "Having trouble figuring it?"

"I may need a translation from lunatic to English."

J throws his head back and laughs. Laughs and laughs and _laughs,_ high and wild, so it bounces off the ceiling, laughs the way he's been on the brink of laughing every minute of every day since his breakdown in the back of Leslie's clinic, and no one moves while he does it. He has the stage. He's controlling the scene. This isn't his turf but it's his stage and his show, even though he's surrounded and alone. "Feathers, you're a _riot!_ " he says, wiping away a tear as the cackles fall away into chortling. "You honestly think _you're_ sane?" He shakes his head.

The Owl was angry from the start; J put a truck into his building and angry is his default state of being anyway, but now he's _bristling_ , and trying hard not to show it because J's so obviously trying to be infuriating. "Are you coming to some kind of point?"

J will say one thing for the feathered jerk—he's easy to keep talking. Not that he ever says that much, but it's like he thinks it's a sign of weakness to be the first one to attack once dialogue has begun. He thinks that a person could probably learn to lead the man around by the nose, if they learned all the signs of weakness he'd always go out of his way to avoid. He snickers. "Yeah, actually."

He moves one hand out of sight for a second and when it comes back it's holding a gun. No one was expecting that; the decorative holster at his side was glaringly empty and he's never used a gun before, and it has shock value even though they mostly carry more dangerous firearms themselves. For a second, everyone's looking at it.

The revolver has one of those super-long barrels nobody makes anymore, probably because rifling technology has improved enough that it's not worth the balance problems in a handgun, and a fancy inlaid grip, and is covered from muzzle to chamber with elegant curls of artful engraving. Owlman's not the _only_ one who can get his hands on wonderful toys.

J lowers the beautiful gun at his enemy's face and notices absently that Owlman seems to swell with more fury at that than at having a semi truck through his wall.

"What I'm sayin' is," he drawls, pulling back the hammer theatrically with his thumb, without making the barrel waver a millimeter, "This town ain't big enough for the both of us."


End file.
